• ETRI Journal
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.560-564
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• 2004

An analog front-end circuit for ISO/IEC 14443-compatible radio frequency identification (RFID) interrogators was designed and fabricated by using a $0.25{\mu}m$ double-poly CMOS process. The fabricated chip was operated using a 3.3 Volt single-voltage supply. The results of this work could be provided as reusable IPs in the form of hard or firm IPs for designing single-chip ISO/IEC 14443-compatible RFID interrogators.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.12
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• pp.66-71
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• 2014

This paper presents an analog front-end integrated circuit (IC) for medical ultrasound imaging systems using standard $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS process. The proposed front-end circuit includes the transmit part which consists of 15-V high-voltage pulser operating at 2.6 MHz, and the receive part which consists of switch and a low-power low-noise preamplifier. Depending on the operation mode, the output driver in the transmit pulser can be reconfigured as the switch in the receive path and thus the area of the overall front-end IC is reduced by over 70% in comparison to previous work. The designed single-channel front-end prototype consumes less than $0.045mm^2$ of core area and can be utilized as a key building block in highly-integrated multi-array ultrasound medical imaging systems.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.115-119
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• 2022

A readout circuit for a mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT)-amplified mid-wave infrared (IR) photodetector was realized and applied to noncontact chemical agent detectors based on a quantum cascade laser (QCL). The QCL emitted 250 times for each wavelength in 0.2-㎛ steps from 8 to 12 ㎛ with a frequency of 100 kHz and duty ratio of 10%. Because of the nonconstant QCL emission power during on-duty, averaging the photodetector signals is essential. Averaging can be performed in digital back-end processing through a high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) or in analog front-end processing through an integrator circuit. In addition, it should be considered that the 250 IR data points should be completely transferred to a PC during each wavelength tuning period of the QCL. To average and minimize the IR data, we designed a readout circuit using the analog front-end processing method. The proposed readout circuit consisted of a switched-capacitor integrator, voltage level shifter, relatively low-speed analog-to-digital converter, and micro-control unit. We confirmed that the MCT photodetector signal according to the QCL source can be accurately read and transferred to the PC without omissions.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.20-23
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• 2010

The analog front end (AFE) of a radio frequency identification transponder using the ISO 14443 type A standard with a 100% amplitude shift keying (ASK) modulation is proposed in this paper and verified by circuit simulations and measurements. This AFE circuit, using a 13.56 MHz carrier frequency, consists of a rectifier, a modulator, a demodulator, a regulator, a power on reset, and a dynamically enabled digital phase locked loop (DPLL). The DPLL, with a charge pump enable circuit, was used to recover the clock of a 100% modulated ASK signal during the pause period. A high voltage lateral double diffused metal-oxide semiconductor transistor was used to protect the rectifier and the clock recovery circuit from high voltages. The proposed AFE was fabricated using the $0.18\;{\mu}m$ standard CMOS process, with an AFE core size of $350\;{\mu}m\;{\times}\;230\;{\mu}m$. The measurement results show that the DPLL, using a demodulator output signal, generates a constant 1.695 MHz clock during the pause period of the 100% ASK signal.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2009

This paper presents a single supply PLC SoC ASIC with a built-in analog Front-end circuit. To achieve the low power consumption along with low cost, this PLC SoC employs fully CMOS Analog Front End (AFE) and several LDO regulators (LDOs) to provide the internal power for Logic Core, DAC and Input/output Pad driver. The receiver part of the AFE consists of Pre-amplifier, Gain Amplifier and 1 bit Comparator. The transmitter part of the AFE consists of 10 bit Digital Analog Converter and Line Driver. This SoC is implemented with 0.18 ${\mu}m$ 1 Poly 5 Metal CMOS Process. The single supply voltage is 3.3 V and the internal powers are provided using LDOs. The total power consumption is below 30 mA at stand-by mode to meet the Eco-Design requirement. The die size is 3.2 $\times$ 2.8 $mm^{2}$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.60-68
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• 2010

In case of sensorineural hearing loss, auditory perception can be activated by electrical stimulation of the nervous system via electrode implanted into the cochlea or auditory nerve. Since the tonotopic map of the human auditory nerve has not been definitively identified, the recording of auditory nerve signal with microelectrode is desirable for determining the tonotopic map. This paper proposes the multi-channel analog front-end for auditory nerve signal detection. A channel of the proposed analog front-end consists of an AC coupling circuit, a low-power 4th-order Gm-C LPF, and a single-slope ADC. The AC coupling circuit transfers only AC signal while it blocks DC signal level. Considering the bandwidth of the auditory signal, the Gm-C LPF is designed with OTAs adopting floating-gate technique. For the channel-parallel ADC structure, the single-slope ADC is used because it occupies the small silicon area. Experimental results shows that the AC coupling circuit and LPF have the bandwidth of 100 Hz - 6.95 kHz and the ADC has the effective resolution of 7.7 bits. The power consumption per a channel is $12\;{\mu}W$, the power supply is 3.0 V, and the core area is $2.6\;mm\;{\times}\;3.7\;mm$. The proposed analog front-end was fabricated in a 1-poly 4-metal $0.35-{\mu}m$ CMOS process.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.172-178
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• 2014

This paper describes the design technique and the method of analog front-end to measure the saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen sensor. To process the $SpO_2$ value from the sensor, the current data from the sensor should be converted into voltage domain. Designed analog front-end usually converts the current data from the sensor into voltage domain data to pass it on analog-to-digital converter called ADC with a different level of gain characteristics. This circuit was fabricated in a $0.11{\mu}m$ CMOS technology and has 4 level of gain properties. The occupied area is $0.174mm^2$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.31-39
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• 2009

This paper presents the single supply power line communication(PLC) SoC ASIC with built-in analog frond-end circuit. To achieve the low power consumption along with low chip cost, this PLC SoC ASIC employs fully CMOS analog front-end(AFE) and several built-in Regulators(LDOs) powering for Core logic, ADC, DAC and IP Pad driver. The AFE includes RX of pre-amplifier, Programmable gain amplifier and 10 bit ADC and TX of 10bit Digital Analog Converter and Line driver. This PLC Soc was implemented with 0.18um 1 Poly 5 Metal CMOS process. The single power supply of 3.3V is required for the internal LDOs. The total power consumption is below 30mA at standby and 300mA at active which meets the eco-design requirement. The chips size is $3.686\;{\times}\;2.633\;mm^2$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.130-137
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• 2013

This paper presents analog front-end(AFE) circuits for bio-potential measurement. The proposed AFE is composed of IA(instrument amplifier), BPF(band-pass filter), VGA(variable gain amplifier) and SAR(successive approximation register) type ADC. The low gm(LGM) circuits with current division technique and Miller capacitance with high gain amplifier enable IA to implement on-chip AC-coupling without external passive components. Spilt capacitor array with capacitor division technique and asynchronous control make the 12-b ADC with low power consumption and small die area. The total current consumption of proposed AFE is 6.3uA at 1.8V.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2009

A low-voltage, low-power analog CMOS front-end for a cardiac pacemaker is proposed. The circuits include a 4th order switched-capacitor (SC) filter with a passband of 80-120 Hz and a SC variable gain amplifier whose control range is from 0 to 24-dB with 0.094 dB step. An inverter-based switched-capacitor circuit technique is used for low-voltage operation and ultra-low power consumption, and correlated double sampling technique is used for reducing the finite gain effect of an inverter. The proposed circuit has been designed in a $0.35-{\mu}m$ CMOS process, and it achieves 80-dB SFDR at 5-kHz sampling frequency. The power consumption is only 330 nW at 1-V power supply.